Letter to the Secretary of the Socialist Propaganda League[2]

Published:First published in 1924 inLenin Miscellany II.

      Written in English before November 9 (23), 1915.

      Published according to the manuscript.Source:Lenin
	  Collected Works,

      Progress Publishers,[197[4]],

      Moscow,Volume 21,

      pages423-428.Translated:Transcription\Markup:D. WaltersandR. CymbalaPublic Domain:Lenin Internet Archive

      2003

      (2005).You may freely copy, distribute,
	display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and
	commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet
	Archive” as your source.

DearComrades![1]

Weare extremely glad to get your leaflet. Your appeal to the members of
    the Socialist Party to struggle for a new International, for clear-cut
    revolutionary socialism as taught by Marx and Engels, and against the
    opportunism, especially against those who are in favor of working class
    participation in a war of defence, corresponds fully with the position our
    party (Social-Democratic Labor Party of Russia,Central Committee)
    has taken from the beginning of this war and has always taken during more
    than ten years.

Wesend you our sincerest greetings & best wishes of success in our fight
    for true internationalism.

Inour press & in our propaganda we differ from your programme in several
    points & we think it is quite necessary that we expose you briefly these
    points in order to make immediate & serious steps for the coordination of
    the international strife of the incompromisingly revolutionary Socialists
    especially Marxists in all countries.

Wecriticise in the most severe manner the old, Second (1889-1914)
    International, we declare it dead & not worth to be restored on old
    basis. But we never say in our press that too great emphasis has been
    heretofore placed upon so-called “Immediate Demands”, and that
    thereby the socialism can be diluted  we say & we prove that all bourgeois
    parties, all parties except the working-class revolutionary Party, are liars
    & hypocrites when they speak about reforms. We try to help the working class
    to get the smallest possible butreal improvement (economic & political) in
    their situation & we add always that no reform can be durable, sincere,
    serious if not seconded by revolutionary methods of struggle of the
    masses. We preach always that a socialist party not uniting this struggle
    for reforms with the revolutionary methods of working-class movement can
    become a sect, can be severed from the masses, & that that is the most
    pernicious menace to the success of the clear-cut revolutionary
    socialism.

Wedefend always in our press the democracy in the party. But we never
    speak against the centralization of the party. We are for the democratic
    centralism. We say that the centralization of the German Labor movement is
    not a feeble but a strong and good feature of it. The vice of the present
    Social-Democratic Party of Germany consists not in the centralization but in
    the preponderance of the opportunists, which should be excluded from the
    party especially now after their treacherous conduct in the war. If in any
    given crisis the small group (for instance our Central Committee is a small
    group) can act for directing the mighty massin a revolutionary
    direction, it would be very good. And inallcrises the masses
    can not act immediately, the masses want to be helped by the small groups of
    the central institutions of the parties. Our Central Committee quite at the
    beginning of this war, in September 1914, has directed the masses not to
    accept the lie about “the war of defence” & to break off with the
    opportunists & the “would-be-socialists jingoes” (we call so the
    “Socialists” who arenowin favor of the war of
    defence). We think that this centralistic measure of our Central Committee
    was useful & necessary.

Weagree with you that we must be against craft Unionism & in favor of
    industrial Unionism, i.e. of big, centralized Trade Unions & in favor of the
    most active participation ofallmembers of party in all economic
    struggles & inalltrade union & cooperative organizations of the
    working class. But we consider that such people as Mr. Legien in Germany &
    Mr. Gompers in the U. S. are bourgeois and that their policy is not a
    socialist but a nationalistic, middle class policy. Mr. Legien, Mr. Gompers
    & similar persons are not the representatives of working class, they
    represent the aristocracy & bureaucracy of the working class.

Weentirely sympathize with you when in political action you claim the
    “mass action” of the workers. The German revolutionary &
    internationalist Socialists claim it also. In our press we try to define
    with more details what must be understood by political mass action, as
    f. i. political strikes (very usual in Russia), street demonstrations and
    civil war prepared by the present imperialist war between nations.

Wedo not preach unity in thepresent(prevailing in the Second
    International) socialist parties. On the contrary we preachsecessionwith the opportunists. The war is the best
    object-lesson. Inallcountries the opportunists, their leaders,
    their most influential dailies & reviews areforthe war, in other
    words, they have in realityunitedwith “their” national
    bourgeoisie (middle class, capitalists) against the proletarian masses. You
    say, that in America there are also Socialists who have expressed themselves
    in favor of the participation in a war of defence. We are convinced, that
    unity with such men is an evil.Suchunity is unity with the
    national middle class & capitalists, and a division with the international
    revolutionary working class. And we are for secession with nationalistic
    opportunists and unity with international revolutionary Marxists &
    working-class parties.

Wenever object in our press to the unity of S. P. & S.L.P. in
America.[3]We
    always quote letters from Marx & Engels (especially to Sorge, active member
    of American socialist movement), where both condemn the sectarian character
    of the S.L.P.

Wefully agree with you in your criticism of the old International. We
    have participated in the conference of Zimmerwald (Switzerland)
    5-8.IX. 1915. We have formed there aleft wing, and have proposedour resolution& our draught of a manifesto. We have just published
    these documents in German & I send them to you (with the German translation
    of our small book about “Socialism & War”), hoping that in your
    League there are probably comrades, that know German. If you could help us
    to publish these things in English (it is possible only in America and later
    on we should send it to England), we would gladly accept your help.

Inour struggle for true internationalism & against
    “jingo-socialism” we always quote in our press the example of the
    opportunist leaders of the S.P. in America, who are in favor of restrictions
    of the immigration of Chinese and Japanese workers (especially after the
    Congress of Stuttgart, 1907, &againstthe decisions of
    Stuttgart). We think that one can not be internationalist & be at the same
    time in favor of such restrictions. And we assert that Socialists in
    America, especially English Socialists, belonging to the ruling, andoppressingnation, who are not against any restrictions of
    immigration, against the possession of colonies (Hawaii) and for the entire
    freedom of colonies, that such Socialists are in reality jingoes.

Forconclusion I repeat once more best greetings & wishes for your
    League. We should be very glad to have a further information from you & to
    unite our struggle against opportunism & for the true internationalism.

YoursN. Lenin

N.B. There are two Soc.-Dem. parties in Russia. Our party
    (“CentralCommittee”) is against opportunism. The other
    party (“OrganizationCommittee”) is opportunist. We are
    against the unity with them.

Youcan write to our official address (Bibliothèque russe. For the
    C. K. 7 rue Hugo de Senger. 7. Genève. Switzerland). But better write
    to my personal address: Wl. Ulianow. Seidenweg 4a, IIIBerne.Switzerland.

[1]Thisletter
    was written by Lenin in English.—Ed.

[2]Theletter
    is a reply to the league’s leaflet received by Lenin in November
    1915. The letter is published in full for the first time.

[3]TheSocialist Party of Americawas formed in July 1901 at the congress in
    Indianapolis as a result of a merger of groups that had broken away from the
    Socialist Labour Party and the Social-Democratic Party in the U.S.A., among
    whose founders was Eugene Debs, the popular American labour leader. He was
    one of the founders of the new party. The social composition of the party
    was motley: native-born and immigrant workers, small farmers, and people
    with a petty-bourgeois background. The Centrist and Right-opportunist
    leaders of the party (V.-L. Berger, Morris Hillquit and others) denied the
    necessity of the dictatorship of the proletariat, refrained from
    revolutionary methods of struggle and confined the Party’s activities
    to participation in elections. During World War I three trends formed within
    the Socialist Party: the social-chauvinists, who supported the
    government’s imperialist policy, the Centrists, who opposed the
    imperialist war only in word, and the revolutionary minority, who held an
    internationalist stand and fought against the war. Led by Charles
    Ruthenberg, William Foster, Bill Haywood and others and with the support of
    proletarian elements, the Left wing of the Socialist Party waged a struggle
    against the opportunist leadership of the party, for the workers’
    independent political activity, and for the formation of industrial trade
    unions based on the principles of the class struggle. In 1919 the Left-wing
    split away from the S.P., initiated the formation of the American Communist
    Party, and became its core.

Atpresent the Socialist Party is a small sectarian
    organisation.

TheSocialist Labour Party of Americawas
    formed in 1876 at a congress in Philadelphia, as a result of a merger of the
    American Sections of the First International and other socialist
    organisations. The work of the congress was guided by F. A. Sorge, an
    associate of Marx and Engels. Most of the Party’s members were
    immigrants who had weak links with the American workers. During the first
    years its leadership was dominated by Lassalleans, who made mistakes of a
    sectarian and dogmatic nature. Some of the party’s leaders considered
    parliamentary activity the main party task, and underestimated the
    significance of party guidance of the economic struggle of the masses, while
    others fell into trade-unionism and anarchism. The ideological and tactical
    vacillations of its leader ship resulted in a number of groups splitting
    away from the party. Marx and Engels severely criticised the sectarian
    tactics of American socialists.

Inthe nineties the leadership of the S.L.P. was taken
    over by its Left wing under D. De Leon who committed anarcho-syndicalist
    errors. The S.L.P. refused to fight for working-class partial demands,
    refused to work in the reformist trade unions, and continued losing its ties
    with the mass working-class movement, weak as they were. During World War I
    the Socialist Labour Party inclined towards internationalism. Under the
    influence of the Great October Socialist Revolution its more revolutionary
    section actively participated in forming the Communist Party of the
    U.S.A. At present the S.L.P. is a small organisation without any influence
    on the U.S. labour movement in the U.S.A.